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John Locke: Handle With Care

LOST spoilers ho! So episode 3 of season 3 was a treat for me, since Locke is my favorite character. A bit more back story, another weird twist and more polar bears. What more could you ask? Well, I’m getting really fond of Ben Henry Linus Gale, so seeing Michael Emerson would not have gone amiss, but it seems like they’re packing in more commercials than ever, so I guess I’ll just have to wait until next week.

Zombie Boone’s appearance was nice, although the sweat hut was a little more tantric-y mystical than I’ve been reading Locke. All the same it gets John of his mute-patoot and back in hero gear to save Mr. Eko while Charlie tags along. Most of this journey just saw Charlie coming back around to Locke’s side, which only goes to show that Hobbits are fickle when gone over to the dark side, and why Claire will never ever actually stayed hooked. Charlie is an adolescent.

Self induced hallucinations can’t stop Locke as he tracks cotton-shedding polar bear through the jungle, who conveniently carries us back past the Swan-crater so we can all wonder – how in the frak anyone got out of that alive? Which will be answered in season 89. Locke of course saves Eko, who then momentarily becomes the voice of God and gives Locke his next mission ala Charlie, (of Angels fame, not heroin-chic metro sexual). At this point, much like earlier in the episode, Eko’s Jesus-stick fell out of my ceiling and gave me a bloody nose. Shame on me for forgetting I was on ABC, the stick seemed to say- next time we’ll syndicate some PAX television.

Silly me.

I did like the episode, if nothing else because I can stare at Terry O’Quinn for 33 minutes (which seem to be how long the episodes are actually running this season). Desmond and Hurley had some fun scenes. “Is that you, Bear?” cracked me up. There’s a few story arc elements introduced, (time travel?) but mainly the episode started the bounce back for John Locke. He’s had a crisis, and he’s got a new goal so I expect him to come back and kick ass the rest of the season. But there’s some things going on with Locke that I don’t like. Before I start in on those, let’s enjoy a moment of Locke’s awesome:

So now that that’s out of the way, I just want to say can we please stop making Locke so fragile. I did not think they could possible strip him down and make him any more vulnerable than having his asshole Dad show up, steal his kidney, and then take his love away. They keep showing him sorta happy and mostly well adjusted in all these circumstances and then they jerk the carpet out from under him. Or have him do it to himself, which is the same thing, if not harder to watch. I understand, I can hear you now- John is human. Humans make mistakes. Stop with blinking neon signs already. This seems to be readily apparent in every character’s backstory. They’re all fuck-ups and/or fucked up. Which leads me to believe they’re making ALL the survivors out to be these horrible people, and the Others really are the good ones.
Which doesn’t spell good things for Locke and I don’t know how much more I can handle seeing him get tormented by the fates and whimsical writers. If John really is a ‘good one’ like Benry suggested, then the only thing that can be worth this is having him smacked around again and again, and yet never crossing the line, while all the others would. But a man who never takes a stand, a guy that gets knocked down, he’s hard to like perpetually. After a while, you’re just sort of like “Stay down, man!” and that’s what I’m worried about with Locke. There’s a thin line between being strong enough to turn the other cheek and getting walked on, and I need Locke to stay on the strong side, because he’s an awesome character and wonderfully played. To the writers I would just say, please don’t make me change my mind, cause I love Locke and I totally do have knives and I will hunt you down.